


the way we get by

by Tobiko



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Being an Asshole, Billy amping up again and Max being mum about it, Bonding, Canon Divergent After S2, Physical Abuse, They love each other, it's not too much which is why no violence tag, the party is protective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 19:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19775074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobiko/pseuds/Tobiko
Summary: Billy is becoming dangerous again: but only for Max. She keeps it to herself, because better to keep family stuff on lock and keep the party safe. El is not cool with this.





	the way we get by

**Author's Note:**

> I started this before s3 and finished it when the muses woke back up after watching s3. Because of this it veers off sharply from canon.
> 
> Also I def messed up the ages, because the party are freshmen while Billy is a senior but whatever, it works here.

The second half of the school year was normal, what you’d expect from a school like Hawkins Middle School in a tiny Indiana town. Max learned the definition of Small Town Americana. It would have been achingly boring if she hadn’t made the amazing friends she did.

Mike had finally gotten over himself and was willing to include her in the group. Now that he had El back he was almost chipper. Hopper allowed him over every weekend, and on weekdays the boys patched her in via radio to games of D&D and other such weekday adventures. Max didn’t play D&D with them often but she had a standing invitation and had made a rogue character to join the party.

Max’s home life was... complicated. Billy left her alone for the first few months but as time wore on and the fear faded he began to pick up where he left off. Slowly at first, more similar to the coldness and anger in California. He didn’t grab her again until summertime and by then she was out of the house so often it was easy to avoid him.

The boys had been abuzz for high school to start, excited and anxious all at once. Max hadn’t been nearly as interested in talking or thinking about it. She didn’t like the idea of seeing Billy in the hallways of her school, but other than that high school seemed like a very small jump when it was right next door to the middle school, especially in a town where she’d seen and fought literal monsters.

The part that was the most nerve wracking was the fact that Eleven would be transferring in mid-October. Max had spent very little time with El since the girl had returned, and El was still lukewarm towards her. Max had accepted that El didn’t have a whole lot of social skills and it had stopped being quite so awkward, but it still stung a little when El openly ignored her when she spoke. Mike was over the moon excited for her to join them and it was all he, Dustin and Lucas could talk about. Will was much less talkative about it, and Max felt a certain solidarity with him even if their reasons not to talk about El’s arrival were very different.

El transferred in as Jane Hopper and the class was interested for a second when they realized she was the daughter of the sheriff, but the interest faded when they realized she already has friends and would not talk to anyone else. El was the same with Max as ever: mildly cool and uncommunicative. It wasn’t as easy to deal with it on a daily basis but Max put up her walls and it went alright. It was much much easier than dealing with Billy day in day out. Especially when Billy was getting worse again.

Something about Max going to school with him now made Billy’s aggression ramp up. Steve had graduated the spring before so he wasn’t around to look out for the party, and that was okay for the most part for everyone but Max. By late October Billy was still leaving Max’s friends alone but went out of his way to mess with her, and Max knew why. Messing with her friends was a war declaration. Messing with Max was family shit. You kept your mouth shut about family shit: that was a lesson Max and Billy both knew by heart.

Max didn’t tell her friends that Billy had amped up again because it was embarrassing and not really their problem. If she could keep Billy from fucking with them by just keeping mum, well, she only had one more year before he was off to college.

And anyway, she hardly saw him at school.

.

Max walked through the empty school hallways with a note from Mr. Jordenson in her pocket to deliver to the front desk. It was some last minute something or other he had to get delivered immediately and Max was the go-to for immediate delivery. Max Mayfield: Zoomer.

She was imagining what it would be like to skateboard through the halls, hearing the echo of wheels in her head and feeling the smooth roll of her board on linoleum when out of nowhere someone checked her shoulder, hard, and she stumbled back.

“What are you doing out here, freak?”

Max looked at Billy warily, confused that he’d approached her at school at all. “Delivering something, what’s it to you?”

Billy’s posture was imposing as he took a step toward her. “You and your mom had to invade my life like a cancer, but school was my one chance not to have to see your ugly, stupid faces everywhere. So you can see why bumping into you might piss me the fuck off.”

“It’s my school too now, Billy, get used to it. I don’t go out of my way to see you, either.” Insults sat at the back of her throat aching to be thrown, but even when he was on his best behavior Max had never risked calling him anything worse than a moron even while he slung the worst insults her way. She didn’t have a death wish.

“No, it’s my school. I run this place. Remember it, Max, because I could make life hell for you and your little friends. Stay out of my fucking sight.” 

Max felt the mention of her friends like a punch and she narrowed her eyes. Their unsteady truce had to hold. It had to. “Leave my friends alone.” 

Billy’s eyebrow raised and he took another step her way. “It wouldn’t even take any effort. You chose the easiest targets as your fuck buddies. Frog face, no teeth, the little gay zombie boy. And let’s not forget your boyfriend, the n-“

As Billy took another step towards Max he suddenly tripped, seemingly out of nowhere. He nearly lost his footing and fell into her, but he caught himself and looked at her, a wild animal fury in his eyes. “Did you just trip me you little bitch?”

How he could come to that conclusion was a mystery, she’d been backing up steadily, and she shook her head hard. “I didn’t do-“

Billy wasn’t listening and reached out to grab her.

“Max.”

Max and Billy’s heads turned down the hall. El was standing at the end of the hall, her eyes intense as they flicked from Max to Billy.

The hand that had been out to grab Max retreated back and Billy lifted it to swipe over his mouth. A few seconds of silence passed before Billy murmured, “Don’t be late after school,” and walked off.

Max watched him go, aware of El’s eyes on her. She didn’t want to look El in the face and silently hoped that El would go on her way, ignore her like usual. The soft sound of El’s approach dashed that hope.

“...Mouthbreather,” El muttered out of nowhere. 

Max let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah. I guess.”

There was an awkward silence, one that Max didn’t want to fill and that she suspected El didn’t know how to. Finally El said, “Dustin said that’s your brother.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed, looking at her shoes.

The tale of the fight in Will’s house and subsequent voyage to the vines was mostly a secret. When the gang had driven back to find that everyone else still hadn’t reconvened and an unconscious Billy on the floor they’d agreed that telling Hopper and Mrs. Byers was a bad bad idea. Steve had quickly driven Billy down the road and left him sleeping in the back seat and the rest of the Hawkins Monster Fighter Crew had returned to the Byers house none the wiser. The explanation of Steve’s bruised face being a result of a demidog fight had been accepted only because everyone was so tired it barely registered to them that he looked like raw meat.

Max had been relieved that the news her brother was a raving lunatic would be kept relatively under wraps. But the boys had told Will without hesitation and she’d been there for that and fine with it. She suspected that at some point the same tale had been told to Eleven, though she hadn’t been a part of it.

So even though this was the first time El was seeing her brother be a massive asshole, Max assumed it wasn’t so much of a shock.

Max chanced a look at El to see the girl’s face scrunched with concentration. After a second she said, “Not like Jonathan.”

“Not really.”

“Or Nancy.”

“Nope.”

“Or-“

“No, you’re right, not at all like the many marvelous siblings our friends have,” Max interrupted, not wanting Eleven to list off the many good relationships to emphasize just how much hers sucked. Shame colored the back of her neck red and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve gotta go deliver this, so-“

“Does he hurt you?”

The question startled Max enough to make her look at El again. El’s lips were pressed thin and she was staring at Max so intensely that she wondered if laser vision was part of El’s power set.

“... why are you asking that.” Max asked flatly. Her first instinct had been to lie but her brain had squawked the party’s stupid mantra of ,”Friends don’t lie,” loudly enough to stop her.

El didn’t answer, looking past Max with a scowl on her face. Max worried that her non-answer had been enough for El to make her own conclusions.

“It’s not a big deal,” Max said.

“It’s not a big deal that he hurts you,” El repeated, looking incredulous.

“You make it sound so melodramatic.”

El’s brow crinkled. “Melodramatic?”

“Um. Like it’s important or big or whatever.”

“It’s not important,” El clarified, making Max squirm.

“...no.”

“Because... you are not important?”

Max clenched her fists and hated herself for the tears that pricked her eyes. “That’s not what I said.”

“Then why would it not be important?”

“It just isn’t, okay? Look I got to go. See you, El- Jane.”

El didn’t say anything back as Max disappeared down the hall.

.

After school Max was supposed to get a ride home with her brother but Lucas asked if she wanted to go to the arcade and play Dragon’s Lair. He promised to walk her home after and Max, remembering the way Billy had looked at her after the hallway incident, accepted. Max told Billy as much from a good five feet away and he just glared at her and drove off, not saying a word. 

That was almost more scary.

Lucas and Max took their time getting to the arcade, chatting as they went. When they arrived the rest of the party was already there and Max’s heart sank. She’d thought it was going to be just her and Lucas. Seeing El standing next to Mike made her stomach clench.

El looked briefly at Max and then looked away. Max felt a rush of relief. El seemed to be ignoring her as usual. For once it didn’t sting.

The rest of the party didn’t notice the awkwardness between the girls, or if they did they thought it was the normal sort. For twenty minutes they played on Dragon’s Lair, draining their pockets of change and shouting profanities at the machine. Then a boy passed by and not-so-subtly elbowed Will as he passed, hissing “Zombie Boy” as he did.

El’s head whipped around and she glared at him and suddenly the boy tripped. Unable to catch himself he slammed into the ground.

Max’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. “You tripped Billy,” she said aloud, thinking back to her conversation with Billy in the hallway and the way he had tripped over air.

El looked at Max, not saying anything and giving Max that unreadable stare that made Max squirm.

“Billy?” Lucas said, suddenly on high alert. Max flinched. Shit.

“Why would El trip Billy?” Dustin asked.

“Billy was going to hurt Max,” El said simply.

The air left Max’s lungs as the four boys stared at her with varying degrees of confusion and alarm.

“What?”

“What does she mean?”

“Are you okay, Max?”

“I thought he was laying off!”

“That’s not exactly-“ Max started to say.

The entire Dragon’s Lair machine rattled and the party turned to look at El, who was glaring at Max. “Friends. Don’t. Lie.”

“And since when are you and I friends?” Max bit back, her unease around El thrown aside. How dare El fucking butt her head in when El didn’t even like her?

The girls glared at one another and the tension rose. Lucas reached out to grab Max’s hand and she pulled away.

Mike looked around the arcade before saying in his Leader voice, “Let’s go somewhere more private.” El could control her power, but she was quick to using it in anger or frustration. The way she was looking at Max was an indication that they needed to go somewhere where strange moving objects would only be observed by other party members.

The gang trooped out behind the arcade and sandwiched themselves between the ramp to wheel in new arcade games and the dumpster, an area they discovered was rarely used in the daytime. It didn’t stink nearly as much as one would think. The arcade shared the dumpster with the post office and for the most part contained paper products. 

Safe stuff to throw around if El got majorly pissed.

Max crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the ground, furious that this was even happening. El throwing a temper tantrum about her business. So great, everything was about El. Again.

But Lucas’s attention was all on her, and he kept trying to get her to look at him. And the entire gang was watching her, now, instead of trying to hide El from curious eyes. Shame colored her cheeks. “I don’t know why we’re doing this. There isn’t anything to talk about.”

“Max, we know your brother,” Mike said, his leader voice still on. “We know what he’s capable of. And if he’s starting to bother you again, we have to do something.”

“If a party member is in danger it is our duty to give assistance,” Dustin said in that earnest way that made Max think he might still harbor some small feelings for her.

“I’m not in danger, you dorks,” Max grumbled.

“You can talk to us, we got your back,” Lucas said. Max felt her heart hurt at the care in his voice.

“We’ll do anything for each other. I know that better than anyone,” Will urged gently.

Max adored the boys and also hated them in that moment. They wouldn’t understand. They couldn’t understand. Not the level of stuff in her family. Lucas’s family was perfect and Dustin’s mom was devoted to him. Mike’s parents were fluffheaded doofuses but at least they didn’t hurt any of their kids. And Will, well, his dad had left before he could really lay into Will about being a “fag”, and his mom fought literal monsters for him.

The only one who might understand, who might know, was a girl who hated her.

“You don’t get it. It’s family stuff.”

The boys’ voices rose in a chorus of protests. They stopped when the dumpster rattled and everyone turned to El, whose face was scrunched with frustration. “Why don’t you want help from your friends?”

“Because they can’t do anything.”

“I can!”

“Oh right, like you want to help me. You hate me!”

El’s eyes widened in surprise and the dumpster stopped rattling. The boys exchanged anxious looks. El suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I don’t... hate you.”

“Yes, you do. You don’t talk to me, you barely look at me, you ignore me most times I talk. Clearly you still don’t want me around, and I’ve come to accept that, but I’m not going to put up with you pretending to care and dragging this all out when you don’t!”

El shifted uncomfortably. She looked at Mike.

But it was Will who stepped forward. “Guys, can we give the girls some space?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good-“ Mike started.

“Trust me,” Will asked.

Max watched, flabbergasted, as the boys started to leave. “What-“

Will smiled at Max. “You two should talk.”

Max looked pleadingly at Lucas. He gave her a thumbs up. “Trust our cleric. He’s Will the Wise.”

Max wanted to strangle each boy individually. She felt betrayed. She and El alone had never happened before. She looked at El warily. What were they supposed to do?

El was staring at her. She seemed to be thinking very hard, and finally she said. “I don’t hate you. But I don’t know you.”

“Yeah. You haven’t really tried to get to know me.”

“No, that’s not-“ El looked frustrated, and she shook her head. “I know Mike and Dustin and Lucas. I searched for Will in the Upside-Down and I found him and I knew him then. I know Joyce. I know Hopper.” She smiled a little mentioning Hopper. “I... don’t know anyone else. It is dangerous not to know people.” 

Max tilted her head. “So you’re saying you don’t know if you can trust me, right?”

El hesitated a moment before nodding curtly.

Max sighed. “I know how that feels.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

Slowly, shyly, El smiled. 

“I am sorry I haven’t been nice. That I’ve been... a brat.”

Max snorted. She had never imagined Eleven calling herself a brat. 

“Are we friends now?” El asked anxiously.

“I’d like that,” Max said.

“And friends help friends.”

“El…”

“That’s the rules,” El said more firmly. “I help you.”

Max closed her eyes and took a deep breath. What was she supposed to say to that? She’d wanted to be El’s friend for over a year and now she was offering not only friendship but protection? Like she _cared_.

Max craved people caring for her like a sober alcoholic craved beer.

“Ok. You help me.”

.

That night was bad, as Max had expected. Billy wrenched her arm up behind her back so hard that her wrist still twinged painfully in the morning and called her every name in the book as he did, making her feel small as a mote of dust. She wouldn’t be able to play Dig Dug for a few days.

Max decided not to tell the others about this because they already had a plan of attack. Making them angrier or pity her even further would do nothing to advance the plan.

The party had agreed the night before that they’d create a situation where Billy was cornered somewhere remote and let El put the fear of god in him a little. There had been some debate over the merits of using El’s power so openly and on such an amoral douchebag, but Dustin had successfully argued that no one would actually believe Billy if he decided to rat, “And anyway, do you think big, bad Billy would ever admit to being beat by a teen girl? He hasn’t told anybody about Max shooting him full of drugs and threatening him with a nail bat!”

They were tentatively going to try to get Billy alone down by the quarry and pull a Troy.

_Billy isn’t like Troy_ , Max had wanted to say, but she’d held her tongue. They knew that, had seen it first hand.

Max rode to school on her skateboard to avoid Billy. Luckily she didn’t need her wrist to steer her.

When she heard the familiar revving of the Camaro behind her, she briefly tried to skate faster before remembering _duh_ , she was on a skateboard and wouldn’t be faster than a goddamn car. By the time she realized, Billy was mere inches from her and she had to dive and roll into the fallen leaves and dirt of the side of the road. Her wrist screamed agony and she knew it was definitely sprained. Billy’s roaring laughter sped off as she curled in a protective ball around her arm.

Max wasn’t prepared for the sudden sirens and she peeked over her knees to see a car (was that Hopper?) peeling passed.

Billy wasn’t a moron. He pulled over dutifully and as the sheriff car rolled to a stop El was already hopping out of the passenger side of the car and sprinting toward her, yelling “Max, Max!”

Max sat up, holding her wrist to her chest and trying to hide ruddy cheeks. This was worse than embarrassing, this was _shameful_. “I’m fine!” she yelled, schooling her face as a fresh lance of pain erupted up her arm. 

“Not fine,” El corrected, landing on her knees as she reached Max and put a hand on her shoulder. “Your arm.”

“It will be okay,” Max said in a rush. “Really.”

“Hopper’s mad,” El explained. They looked down the road where Hopper was yelling into Billy’s open window.

“I can see that,” Max said dryly. 

“I told him.”

“You what?” Max demanded, her whole body suddenly cold all over except the fire that was her wrist.

“That Billy is bad. I told him,” El said simply.

“You can’t do that!” Max protested.

“I did?” El frowned a little, confused. “No can’t.”

“You shouldn’t have!” Max said, suddenly angry. El reeled back in alarm. “You shouldn’t have, El! You said we’d deal with this, you said you’d help me! This isn’t- that doesn’t help! Fuck!” Max stood on wobbly legs and started towards Hopper.

“I don’t understand,” El said as she followed at a small distance. “How is that not help?”

“Because now he KNOWS!” Max hollered back.

El looked more confused than ever and started to say something. Max closed her eyes and whipped around.

“I heard about the lab! I heard about the scientists and the experiments!” Max had started out yelling but had the presence of mind to lower her voice to a hiss when she remembered the secrecy and threats of governmental interference. El faltered, her whole face paling. “And I can sure as shit take some guesses that they weren’t so nice to you,” Max snapped, hating herself already for what she was saying and the way she was saying it but bulling onward. “You want people to know all that? What it was like? What they did? Do you, _Eleven_?” The last dig slipped through her lips and she slammed her mouth shut. That was too far. It was way too far… Tears slipped from her eyes and she turned away.

El’s face was hard and pale and her eyes glistened with hurt.

_So much for friendship._

El looked at the ground. “I do not,” she said quietly, a wobble in her voice. “It would make me… sad… and mad. I’m sorry I did that.”

“I’m sorry I said what I said,” Max apologized softly.

“You were sad and mad,” El said. “It was not nice but friends forgive.”

Max looked at El with unmasked shock. El was really forgiving her for being so awful? And so quickly?

“Can I hug you?” El asked.

Max nodded, unwilling to trust her own voice. El gave her an awkward hug and Max felt her emotions unravel from a coil in her chest. She prevented herself from sobbing into El’s chest through sheer willpower.

The sound of Billy’s Camaro peeling off alerted them to his departure and the girls turned to see Hopper approaching them, a hand on his neck and an anxious frown on his face. “Uh… so I gave Billy a bit of a talking to,” he said. “I made it pretty clear if I heard anything about you being hurt again I’d be taking some serious action.”

Max nodded woodenly.

“I need you to understand this, Max. You can come to me if this happens again. Come to me, or go to Joyce and she’ll come to me if you don’t feel comfortable with this. You deserve to feel safe in your own home.”

Max stared at Hopper and wondered how such a genuinely kind statement could sound so _stupid_. She would never feel safe in that house with Billy and Neil there, not even if they didn’t touch her for the rest of her life.

“Thank you,” is what Max said instead of that.

“Let us drive you to get that wrist looked at, huh?”

Max rode to the hospital sandwiched between Hopper and El. El, in an act of startling intimacy, put her head on Max’s shoulder. Somehow that more than Hopper talking to Billy, more than El giving her a hug in the road, made Max feel okay. 

.

After Max got her wrist wrapped Hopper took her and El for ice cream instead of taking them to school. He declared it an official skip day and called Max’s parents to let them know that Max had been hurt, was okay, and that she was safe with the sheriff.

Hopper proceeded to take El and Max back to the cabin and the girls spent the day getting to know each other for the first time. Max hadn’t had a close girl friend since before first grade. Being able to relax and chill with another girl was wonderful.

The party all came over after school, a tumble of boy energy nearly knocking down the front door in their demands to know what had happened and if they were okay. Like a little miracle, Max and El had exchanged a look and burst into laughter.

They told the boys a truncated version of what had happened, leaving out the emotional outburst and the horrible things that Max had said. The boys started to all talk at once, save Will who watched them with serious, concerned eyes. After a second he said, quiet but somehow cutting through all the ruckus, “So we aren’t going to do the thing at the quarry?” 

The other three boys began to protest that they should still get Billy, but Max nodded as she looked squarely at Will. “That’s off.”

“Are you sure, Max?” Lucas asked. He looked down at her hand and his face pulled into a grimace. “He deserves it.”

“Maybe. But I don’t want to risk El or spend any more time on Billy than I need to. If Hopper’s speech got him to back off, then that’s all I wanted anyway.” She looked down at her wrapped wrist and said quietly, “Thank you all. I mean it.”

“Friends help friends,” El said.

Max knew how true that was.


End file.
